


Felled by an Axe

by misslonelyhearts



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:23:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/pseuds/misslonelyhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a gift fic written for neonowls as part of the Dragon Age Holiday Cheer secret santa exchange on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Felled by an Axe

“Remind me again why we’re up here?”  Isabela sighs and kicks at the slushy remains of the morning’s snow. 

“We’re looking for a tree.”

“Ah!  A tree?”Marian stops, because Isabela’s feet no longer echo behind hers, and she turns to find the pirate gazing at Sundermount’s sun-lit face, beyond the forest trail.  Isabela shakes her head, spreading her arms wide as she turns a slow, stupefied circle in the copse of trees. “Where in all of Thedas will we find such an illusive creature?”

“These aren’t right.”  Marian gives a tease of a smile, undaunted.  She loves dragging Isabela out where it’s cold, where she’s forced to take the mage’s too-small coat, after it’s been offered for the tenth time.  Though it doesn’t really close, the pirate tugs it around her anyway, rejoining Hawke on the needle-strewn path.

“There are a hundred better things we could be doing on a dreary day like this, pet.”  Cold noses meet somewhere inside the fog of their breath.  There’s a tug at her hip, and Marian looks down to find Isabela fondling the axe in its sling. 

“I love it when you tell the truth.” The mage’s voice goes soft, and her fingertips are warm where they’ve crept into the coat to find the other woman’s waist.  All the better things they could get up to dance behind Marian’s eyes when they kiss.  But it _is_ bitterlycold, and the line of clouds threatens snowfall, and Mother wants a blighted tree to decorate.  She breaks the luscious seal of their lips and presses her frosty nose to the pulse beneath the Rivaini’s jaw. “Let’s get the tree and get out of here.”

They continue up the path to where the forest thins, tall trees giving over a little to waifish new growth and stubby brush that clings to the rocks.  Marian’s long coat trails behind Isabela as she surges ahead of the mage into a clearing.  There are stumps here, evidence of fresh-cut logs, and before she comes into the circle of trees, Hawke sees Isabela kneel and wave her over with a hushed gesture.

“We’re dealing with real scholars, here.”  The pirate plucks at a poorly-concealed tripwire strung across the shadowy entrance to the clearing. Tucked into the path, at the opposite side of the clearing, is a pile of logs meant to be released by the wire, ostensibly flattening anyone in the clearing. 

Marian watches Isabela deconstruct the trap.  The pirate is a wonder.  She has it in pieces within seconds.  It’s the deftness of those fingers, the care and knowledge in each movement, that has the mage enthralled when she should be yanking her staff from its thong and searching for the hidden mercenaries.

Instead, Marian hefts her axe in one hand, and passes the other hand over a shoulder that should be bare but isn’t.  Isabela winks up at her and stands, brushing pine needles from her hands and knees.

“What are you going to do with _that_?”  She laughs quietly, and Marian’s borrowed coat creaks over her broad shoulders as she slides her blades free.

“I know how to cut things!  I’m not just a pair of fireballs, you know.”  Marian’s pout isn’t real.  But she decides that what Isabela doesn’t know about her skill with an axe will make for a fine surprise. 

It’s a rare day that Hawke can take the opportunity to show the pirate something she hasn’t seen before.  In her hand, the axe suddenly feels like a charming way to impress Isabela.  And, by the sound of footfalls across the clearing, Marian can tell her moment isn’t terribly far off.  She follows the blue headscarf into the brush, keeping low.  And it’s a position that affords her, in addition to concealment, a fantastic view of Bela’s rear end as they creep closer to the sound of mouth-breathing and guttural snorting.

Their wide arc through the trees brings the pair of them above, and behind, a cluster of three men.  Two mercs stand at the ready, facing the path they’ve no reason to suspect is empty now, craning their necks to see beyond the brush where they’ve hidden their trap.  The third man sits on a tree stump near Marian, back hunched with a chugging smoke-pipe clenched between his teeth.

She draws the axe horizontally in front of her, and advances on the seated fellow.  In a flash, the length of the handle slips over his head and against his neck, and she steps back.  The pipe falls, but these things don’t matter to dead men.  With Isabela’s sly, approving eyes on her, Marian pulls the man tight against her, twisting in a fluid motion.  The sound of his neck fracturing is lost somewhere in the final rustling of his feet on ice-crusted leaves.  Only then do the other two mercenaries turn.

The mage lets her broken victim fall and leaps into the clearing, only a pace behind the flash of blue and gold.  She twirls the axe to a more useful position, dipping its weight between her fingers.  It catches in her palm along the downward swoop, just at the pleasing swell of its handle .

“Cor!  It’s only girls, Grim.”  Dead Man the First grins at his cohort, chapped lips pulling over bean-brown teeth.

“Then quit yer flapping and catch one, Frag,” comes the phlegmy response from Dead Man the Second.

They don’t know how they’ve already been marked for death in countless ways.  How it could be fire that takes their lives, or the careful sting of twin blades touched by the cold.  Or, how the reach and swiftness of Isabela’s leg is greater than any sword Marian has ever seen. 

Both men yank unfortunate-looking shortblades from their hips, and Isabela clucks.  Because Marian has always been queerly silent in a fray, the taunt of a Rivaini will be the last voice they hear.

“Yes, come catch one … _Frag_.”  Bela’s blades slither through sunlight, cutting it to brilliant bits.  It’s a distraction, and the gold at each hilt muddles her opponent’s focus as the daggers sway the ends of her long arms.  And Frag is dazzled enough to miss his chance to strike first.  Instead, he finds the harsh end of a boot lodged in his abdomen.

This Grim is not a complete fool though, and while Isabela easily tackles his lesser counterpart, the leader advances on Marian.  They feint at each other, the mage keeping a respectable distance as she circles around Isabela’s _conversation_ with the outmatched Frag.  Grim is wet around the ankles, snow and ice crusting his fur-lined boots, but the mage knows that even soggy fur and leather will burn under a decent application of heat. The fingers of her left hand twitch, drawing force through her forearm, down into her palm.  The sinister snap of flame jumps across the air, trailing smoke and steam.  The merc is too sluggish to leap, though, muscles lagging too slowly behind the arc of fire that lands at his feet.  Ice sizzles and his pants erupt. 

As Isabela sweeps both daggers across Frag’s throat, she takes a step back to watch Marian take a measure of pity on the writhing, flaming Grim.

In the mage’s right hand, the axe drops neatly toward the ground, caught-up at the last second at a worn spot in the wood made by work not at all like this.  Marian hefts it, chin down and eyes clear, and sends the tool whistling across the open space between herself and the engulfed mercenary.  It cartwheels past Isabela’s appreciative grin, the open surprise in her amber eyes, and finds its home in Grim’s skull with a wet crunch.  Like a felled tree (albeit one on fire) he tips over into death with nothing but a pair of smirking _girls_ and the chirp and scramble of startled chipmunks to accompany him.

Marian’s breath plumes in front of her, released from the barest hint of a smile.

“Gorgeous!” Isabela hisses the consonants against her teeth, and watches the mage approach Grim’s flaming body.  Marian casts a brief frost over the merc, extinguishing the fire, and plants her boot on his neck before wrenching the axe from between his eyes.

“You liked that, huh?”  She gives the axe-blade a haphazard swipe across her thigh, leaving the faintest smear of charred blood.  There are a handful of things she’s really good at, and likely she’ll get a handful of pirate for this exhibition.  But not smiling, keeping a serene face when what she really wants is to shout and grin, is among her better skills.

“I’m that good, huh?  Could I give up this fabulous apostate life?” This is the Hawke voice, her father’s voice.  She holds the axe away from Isabela’s clever touch.  “Tempting.”

 “What I wouldn’t give to see you do that all day.”  Bela’s voice is wistful, and she sweeps the coat away from her hips with a flourish, an innocent sigh lifting with her eyes to the hills.  The scarf at her waist rides low across white linen and a bare thigh, and it seems impossibly blue in the dreary cold of the clearing  “Do you think you could wield two blades for me, princess?”  And, the mage watches the muscles of that thigh twist as Isabela cajoles her. “Can you double-fist?”

Marian rolls her eyes, but she swallows hard all the same.

“I’ve been known to handle two at once”

Isabela catches her around the waist, trying not to laugh at Marian’s poor volley, strong fingers spread low over her back.  The mage misses nothing in the arch of that eyebrow, or her honeycoated voice.  The pirate gives in to a startling moment of possessiveness. It appears in the space between her thumb against Marian’s spine, and the pinky teasing the seam that rides the center of the mage’s leggings.  At the spot where they cling and part. And it’s the sort of possession they’ve both come to appreciate. 

“Come on.  Let’s have a demonstration of skill.” Isabela presses the hand more firmly into Marian’s back.

“Just what _would_ you give to see that?” 

“I’m not in the habit of paying up front, Hawke.  But, I seem to be making more and more exceptions for you.”  Isabela’s other hand finds and traces Marian’s jaw.  When she mentions _exceptions_ , her thumb travels across the mage’s lip, and the fleeting solemnity that passes over those golden eyes would be sad if Marian let it be.  But, she just …can’t.  So she ducks out of the pirate’s touch only to claim her mouth. Kissing Isabela is an act of pure, crazed delight, and it pushes all else away.

Marian chucks the axe somewhere behind her, because her hands need heated flesh instead of smooth wood.  Fingers, cold but still singing with the call of fire, delve past the borrowed coat, beneath white linen and laces, and tuck into the gooseflesh at the small of Isabela’s back. The clearing echoes with the deep, dark laugh of a Rivaini, and unseen birds titter in the branches above them. 

Isabela tends to make promises with the same mouth that fulfills them—and this is no different.  She moves against Marian, tongue fitting snugly into the waiting mouth.  All the places the mage has always been too lean, with too many angles and not enough swell, seem to find their rightful pairing against the pirate.  Though she is tall, Hawke finds herself perpetually bent to Bela’s figure, but nothing about it ever feels like anything but dancing.

Back and back, their feet take them swaying over snow and crisp leaves until the mage hits a tree stump and goes down hard.  But the pain is brief, and infinitely tolerable, with handfuls of bum to steady her and hot kisses cooling on her throat.  Isabela’s knee fits between Marian’s legs, buckles and straps notwithstanding, notching deliciously at the apex, and works a slow rhythm there.  While the mage’s fingers move from bare hips to a neck laden with gold, Isabela’s trip down from their spot at Marian’s jaw to the clasps running over her chest.  Marian’s leathers wrench open, just at the front, just enough for trap-tested hands to set their chilled tips to a breast.

If Isabela dislikes Hawke’s tendency toward silence she never makes a point to say so.  In the end, they kill their marks just as easily…and their bed catches Marian’s inaudible murmurs of joy just as well.  Here, under the creak of ice-laden branches, she can only take the measure of Hawke’s essential sounds; her whimper at the cold hand cupping her; her soft huffing from lip to lip; the whicker of leather, as the mage grinds restlessly against the sliding knee.  Marian bucks beneath her, arching above the pale center of the tree stump, boots thumping in the snow, and Bela coos softly in her ear, “Sweet thing, be still a moment.”

Marian obeys, soft cries dying in her throat, and she tucks her lower lip under her teeth.  Isabela jerks the troublesome leggings past her knees.  But they’ll go no further without losing the warmth of boots, too, and Bela clucks her tongue.  _Pants,_ the crinkles around her eyes say, _pointless_. 

The movement pulls Hawke flat on her back, and for a moment she catches sight of the black tracery of winter branches reaching across the sky, even as she reaches down, past the blue scarf, for dark hair to bunch and tug.  But the next moment, and the ones immediately following, are wholly consumed by the contrast of cold skin smothered by heat, exposure and tenderness.

For Marian, watching Isabela’s mouth descend on her sex is like sharing some bittersweet language.  It feels like they are both coming and going, and leaving only longing in their wake.  _Saodad_ , the pirate whispered once, and never really explained what it meant.  That word sticks in Marian’s mind when their lips work one another, — whether they are quick in an alley, or if they have all the time in the world locked away in the house —  and, the mage is sure Isabela will break her heart.  Maker help her…with her fingers shoving beneath that headscarf, needing to see more, Marian lets herself hope for the best. 

The pirate’s tongue makes shallows passes, at first, ever the flirt, and then her lips close suddenly over the nub begging for her attention. Hawke cracks her head against the tree stump, worrying the skin of her lip with her teeth, and dimly notices the birds chittering in the snowy branches above.  She cranes to watch the twisted plane of her own body, some parts dark with leather and others the barest color of all, down to where the master rogue is framed by the grip of thighs.  The sight of dark lashes between her legs, pursed lips and taut cheeks, all lowered over the work of Hawke’s pleasure sends spinning jolts of heat to the nub dipping under Bela’s tongue.

The borrowed coat scrunches over broad shoulders, and as Isabela soothes the reddened bud, abused briefly by the blunted drag of teeth, Marian gasps.  Her eyes focus on the winking gold of daggers, and she’s seized in that moment by more than the fingers kneading her bottom and the sparks pulsing from her core.  Watching the swaying weapons, she thinks of her axe.  The mage decides that she can either hold onto rough bark, and come against Bela’s mouth with nothing but her bumping hips, her melancholy, and her blasted silence to offer…or she can make a brief and joyful spectacle for the woman loving her in this place.

After all, a Hawke is nothing if not a showman.

And when everything from her tummy to her toes feels as tight as a Templar’s arse, she lunges for the weapons and slides them free.  The pirate squeaks against her, nipping Hawke where she really can’t take any more abuse, and gold sharpens the dull air with a twinge of light.  The blades twist in circles, passing like acrobats from finger to finger, and with a flourish mirroring the axe-trick Marian plants them in the crisp wood at either side of her waist. 

“Ha!”  The sound is triumphant, but breathless, and Isabela gapes at her.  Marian grips the dual hilts and returns Bela’s stare, panting.  Possessiveness returns, and it rolls between the locked pair of eyes like a flaming cannonball.  Marian isn’t sure if the heated gaze is good or not, if it refers to the blades or the body, but Bela runs her tongue over the curve of her lip.  Nimble fingers flutter and resettle on her thighs.  She shares with Marian a brief flurry of startled lashes, blinking across the hot and cold skin.  The tongue that isn’t done setting up the mage’s orgasm returns to make quick, brilliant work of finishing the job. She slips her chilled fingers inside, where Marian is already clenching, and thumbs her clit sweetly.  Against the grinding rush of hips, Isabela sets her voice low, moaning and filling the flushed skin with her own triumphant sound.

Hawke writhes between her makeshift handles, hot metal in her palms, and tries not to squeeze Bela’s head with her knees.  She can’t help the sounds that remain as she floats down; her ragged breath cloaked in fog, her chattering teeth, and the grateful laugh sneaking up behind her smile.  There is pinesap sticking to her back, and sweat pooling in her collarbone, and Marian thinks of nothing but Isabela’s hands moving over the leaf-covered tripwire trap.

Her face is, Marian’s sure, caught in some trembling masque of joy, but she can only concentrate on the nip of cold in this receding tide of blackness.  Hands tug her trousers up, smoothing along her flank as her legs fall, and the blissful weight of another body covers her. It’s not until she feels something tickle her nose, a kiss of fluff, featherlight and crisp, that Marian realizes her eyes are screwed shut.  Blinking them to life in the white shock of day, she looks up and over the dark column of Isabela’s neck, over the upturned nose and the intake of breath through a smug smile, up to the forest canopy where snow cascades past the screen of pine boughs.

It drifts over everything, perfect and heavy, making a muted patter in the forest to match the thump in her chest.  Marian sighs, watching snow gather on the shoulders of her borrowed coat, and melt in the dark cleft of the Rivaini’s chest.

“Huh.”  It’s superbly understated, the kind of erudite compliment that surely Isabela is tired of.  But she laughs anyway, framing Hawke’s face tenderly, before pressing cold nose to cold nose and kissing her. 

“Did I mention that I hate the cold?”

“You lie.” The mage lifts her knees, bringing Isabela closer.  “How can I believe anything you say after that display?”

“I promised.  And now you owe me a demonstration.”  Her hands play just over Marian’s breasts, pushing them together in the open front of her leathers.  She drops a kiss to the sticky flesh.  Isabela licks her lips and her warm hands cover the mage’s fingers, still resting on the blades stuck in the stump. “But, if you touch my babies again I’ll make you pay.”

“ _More_ promises!”  Marian tsks behind a pursed mouth, sitting up as the pirate wrenches her weapons free and re-sheaths them.  They manage to pull each other to their feet, Isabela shooing pine needles from the knees of her boots while the mage shimmies and ties her leggings in place. 

When all is as it was, except perhaps for the tell-tale swirl of hair sticking up at the back of Marian’s head, the two of them drift back into the clearing.  Snow pelts the ground with more urgency than before, and she picks up the axe.  Much like the unfortunate mercenaries, it’s covered in an impressive crust of white.  She knocks the snow away and hefts the axe as they stare for a bit at the rise of Sundermount, thrusting up into the snow-burdened clouds. 

“Maker take the sodding tree.  Mother can decorate Carver this year.”  Hawke smiles to herself at the image of her grumpy brother covered in a garland of winterberries and bows.  Isabela does her best to smooth down the mussed hair before draping loose arms around the mage’s waist.

“That’s my kind of plan, pet.”

Marian balances the axe on the tips of her fingers, making it jump and twist, and flips it end-over-end for Isabela as they walk from the clearing.  Their hands lock together on occasion while they take the path that leads to the city, kicking through the new drifts of snow, powder clotting on their boots.


End file.
